Welcome to our second lesson in data centre virtualization with VMware,
this time around we’ll be focusing on the Bare- metal Type-1 hypervisor;
VMvisor ESXi installation and configuration.

As highlighted in my previous
tutorial, the lessons are designed to help individuals pursuing knowledge for
certification in VCP (VMware Certified Professional) and DCV (Data Center
Virtualization), with a hands-on approach. You can always revisit the previous articlewhere we learned how to install a Type-2 VM.

As always, head over to the
VMware website for more detailed information about software packages.

Hardware Requirements for
VMvisor ESXi 6.5 installation

One of the most crucial
aspects of this set up requires hardware with minimum specifications to run the
Type-1 hypervisor ESXi.

■

ESXi 6.0 requires a host
machine with at least two CPU cores.

■ESXi 6.0 supports 64-bit
x86 processors released after September 2006.

■

ESXi 6.0 requires the NX/XD
bit to be enabled for the CPU in the BIOS.

■

ESXi requires a minimum of
4GB of physical RAM. It is recommended to provide at least 8 GB of RAM to run
virtual machines in typical production environments.

■

To support 64-bit virtual
machines, support for hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI) must be
enabled on x64 CPUs.

■

One or more Gigabit or
faster Ethernet controllers.

■

SCSI disk or a local,
non-network, RAID LUN with unpartitioned space for the virtual machines.

■

For Serial ATA (SATA), a
disk connected through supported SAS controllers or supported on-board SATA
controllers. SATA disks will be considered remote, not local.

Download
and Prepare .iso VMvisor ESXi Installer

This is where having an
account with VMware comes in handy. After your account becomes active, browse
to the download section to access lots of software for practice along with
their licenses.

Next you would need to make a
USB bootable drive to install on the bare-metal. For those who have never heard
of Rufus, it is a great free tool for converting .iso operating systems into
files bootable from a USB stick. More information on how to create this is
available here: https://rufus.akeo.ie/

Installing
VMware VMvisor ESXi on a Host Machine

Bearing in mind this is a
type-1 Bare-Metal Hypervisor installation, you must have a working
.iso file burned onto a disc or USB flash drive. Go into your system bios
settings to enable VT-x functionality, set to boot from disc or USB flash and
reboot your system.

1. If you got the initial
set up right, you should see a loading screen as below with ESXi unpacking
required components for installation.

2. Next you will be
presented with some information about access to information about compatibility
for your hardware. You can hit Enter to continue. This installation
should take about 5 minutes to complete.

3.Read User License Agreement and hit F11 to Accept and Continue.

4. At
this stage, set up will ask which drive to install ESXi on. The virtual drive
already selected will be adequate so press Enter to continue.

8. You
will see the VMware ESXi 6.5.0 installation progress, provided no errors occur.

9. If
you can see the screen below, your installation of ESXi was successful and you
can now hit Enter to reboot the system. There is also a prompt to remove
the installation media before rebooting.

10.
During reboot, you will get to see some hardware information about the bare
metal and version of ESXi that has just been installed.

11. Once
the reboot is complete, you will notice a DHCP assigned IP address along with
the option F2 to customize the
hypervisor or F12 to Shut Down/Restart
the machine.

This concludes the
installation of VMware ESXi as a Type-1 hypervisor. In the next section, we will
explore how to configure our new system and the tools required to control and
manage virtual machines on ESXi 6.5

Configuring VMware ESXi Host Hypervisor System

Now that we have our VMware
ESXi system fully installed, there are a few configuration settings required to
manage the host.

Remember that in a traditional
environment, the hypervisor will have no graphical interface like we are used
to in Windows operating systems so your method of control would be through a
remote client.

When you are ready to proceed,
hit the F2 key to enter the system
customization screen. Here you get the options to manage the following;

§Configure
Password

§Configure
Lockdown Mode

§Configure
Management Network

§Restart
Management Network

§Test
Management Network

§Network
Restart Options

§Configure
Your Keyboard

§Troubleshooting
Options

§View
System Logs

§View
Support Information

§Reset
System Configuration

Try accessing all these
options for details on customizable configuration settings to suit your needs.

For the scope of this lesson,
we shall be focusing on Network Management Configuration.

12. Select
Configure Management Network from the list and use your arrow keys to navigate
down to IPV4 Configuration.

13. Hit Enter
to edit those details. It is best to assign a static IP address in the same
subnet to your VMware ESXi host, making it easily accessible for control by the
vSphere client.

Use the Space bar to mark your
selection and Enter to accept the changes to set a static IP address.

The DNS and Custom DNS
Suffixes can also be edited with yourdomainname.com if you have one.

Logging Into VMware ESXi Host Hypervisor

We are now ready to log into our
Type-1 Hypervisor host and to do this, we’ll need a client application called
vSphere which can be downloaded from the VMware website.

Until recently, administrators
needed to install the Windows Legacy vSphere client seen in the image below on
another computer to be able to control the ESXi host.

You can still access the host
with this application by providing the IP address of the server, your root
username and password.

In this lesson however, we will
be using the new web VMware ESXi client application to dial into and control
our host. Click Continue after entering https://IPaddress of
your server into a web browser.

14.You
should see the log in screen below, go ahead and enter your root details to log
onto the host.

15. If
successful, you’ll see the main web client management interface for your ESXi
host.

Spend some time familiarising yourself with all the different sections
available on this dashboard.

We’ll take a closer look at
all the management options and what we can further develop them in our next
lesson when we learn to build multiple virtual machines inside an ESXi hypervisor
host.

Similarly, if you decide to
pursue any certification in the direction of VCP (VMware Certified
Professional) and DCV (Data Center Virtualization), you are required to take an
online or physical class from an authorised agent. Please visit the website for
more information.

Typically, a training course
in VMware vSphere: Install, Configure and Management will cost about £3,192.00
with the vSphere Foundations Exam Number: 2V0-620 costing about £276.00

Join us in the next lesson as
we delve deeper into more advanced configurations of VMware ESXi to help
sharpen your skills as you prepare for your exams or career as an engineer.

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